Overview (3)

Mini Bio (1)

The actress was born Marilyn Watts in Santa Monica, California, 17 years before she put her foot on the bottom step of the show biz ladder, dancing in the back row of the chorus in "Earl Carroll's Revue" at the famed showman's theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling for photographers led to wider exposure and ultimately to TV roles and bit parts in low-budget movies. As a Universal-International contract player, she was in most every type of B picture that the studio made. She gave up acting in the early '60s to concentrate on marriage and motherhood during 17 tumultuous years as the wife of actor Richard Long. Since his 1974 death, she's played supporting parts in her friend Clint Eastwood's movies, just as he played a supporting role in one of hers (Tarantula (1955)).

Frequently cast by (director) Clint Eastwood, who had a cameo in a film she co-starred in, Tarantula (1955).

Plays the waitress in the third Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact: the same scene (and location) where Clint Eastwood uttered what would become an extremely famous, historic movie line: "Go ahead... Make my day!".

Personal Quotes (6)

I do not believe in frontal nudity, that's just the way I am. If you show that, what's left, what do you do for an encore?

Once I got married, I just sort of put blinders on and concentrated on my children; that was the most important thing in my life, my family.

[on Audie Murphy, with whom she worked on Drums Across the River (1954)] We were shooting on the back lot--it got to be supper time and Audie asked me out for a little dinner. We got in his car, anxious to get that prime rib! It was turning dark and we were at a stoplight. There were kids in back of us and when the light changed, they honked because Audie didn't start right away. The teenagers gave him the finger--and took off up the street. And right behind were Audie and me. He reached in his glove compartment--while rolling down his window. He got a gun and said, "I'm gonna get them!" We followed along Ventura Boulevard--I said, "My God, I just signed a contract. I can't die now!" Audie said to me, "Oh, I scared you, didn't I?" I told Tony Curtis, "I'm terrified of him". Tony told me a story about Audie shooting up one of his sets one day! Audie was very quiet, soft-spoken and boyish--yet a flirt with the girls. But he had a short fuse, so you walked around on eggs whenever he was near.

[on Kirk Douglas, with whom she worked in Man Without a Star (1955)] My option had just been picked up. Kirk Douglas has mellowed extremely since then. Early on in the film I played a whore--there were two scenes at a dance hall. All the guys were leaning on the bar. All of us girls took a poll as to which butt was best. We picked Richard Boone's. We told him, "We pick you" and Kirk heard. It made him so angry at me! Publicity wanted a photo of Kirk grabbing me by the necklace--he grabbed it and almost choked me! When I said something he stated, "I'm not acting! You should take this business more seriously. I don't like your attitude and your kidding around". I said, "Go screw yourself, I just got renewed!" How dare he tell me I can't kid around! Kirk also treated little King Vidor, the director, badly. Whatever King said, he had to defer to Kirk. In the '70s--13 or 14 years later--I met Kirk and now he's the sweetest man in the world!

[on Susan Cabot] Susan was very weird, a strange little girl. She had this enormous head and then this little tiny body, and she was paranoid.

[on director Fred F. Sears] Fred was a very nervous man, I felt. A man without any sense of humor whatsoever. Just very frightened--not loose at all. Uptight.